Tonight is a slow night. I look up at the ticking clock to see that it is already 2:04 am. The tea house has been opened since midnight. Yet, it is still dead silent with only the persistent ticking of the clock and the ambient lo-fi music playing softly in the air. I wipe the same transparent teacup for the 34th time when the small bell over the doorway tinkle delicately. Enter a man who looks like he is in his sixties. He looks like that Colonel Sanders guy. Well-coiffed peppery hair, neatly-trimmed mustache and beard, complete with half-rimmed glasses over his nose. The only differences are in the way he carries himself and the heaviness in his steps. Oh and also, he is in a tacky brown suit (Who wears a brown suit nowadays?) with a briefcase in his right hand. I could barely hold my cringe at his fashion choices. But I'm a professional, and I guess you could say that I'm in the service industry. And everyone who works in this industry knows that professionals don't mix their personal emotions into their jobs. No matter what, customers are always right. Even if they look like a trainwreck. 

I turn on the small stovetop where a porcelain kettle stood.

"Welcome, what could I get you tonight, Mr... "

"Barrett."

"Mr. Barrett." I repeat while feeling the word in the way I speak it. "Paul Barrett?" Oh, did I mention that I have a knack for guessing customers' first names? Well, I do.

"Yes." And not having them question why I'm able to guess them right every single time.

Without waiting for an answer on what Mr. Barrett's preference of tea is,  I turn to the floor-to-ceiling wooden cabinet behind me that is filled with all the loose tea leaves, dried flowers, and herbs that you could imagine. I tap on the drawers, two across, one above, and pick two varieties of tea leaves and one of the dried flowers into a shallow teardrop-shaped wooden plate that  I carry in my other hand. I then turned to face Mr. Barrett once again before placing the wooden plate on the table and crushing its contents with a dainty stone pestle shaped like a small wheel on a spoke. I know. Tea purists all over the world are wishing that I cease to exist so that I wouldn't ruin tea anymore. But guess what, you need to find me first before you can do anything about it. So beat it.

The porcelain kettle whistled right when the bell over the door tinkle again.